This is a message for US drone pilots: we are not bugs

An artist collective erected this photo exhibit in Pakistan to remind drone operators that their targets are real people. According to a report, the nameless child pictured lost her parents and her siblings to a drone attack.

Credit:

Reprieve/Foundation for Fundamental Rights/NotABugSplat.com

US military and CIA drone operators are believed to refer to casualities in Afghanistan as "bug splats" — because of the lack of detail visible on a remote camera screen.

A new blog claims to have documented the work of artists who are attempting to present a clearer view of drone strike victims to the remote pilots. They have laid out a giant photograph in a field showing a girl whose parents and two siblings were killed in a drone attack. It’s not clear who the artists are, or even where they're based, but the results are striking.

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Assad's government may not have perpetrated the chemical attack in Syria

Veteran liberal journalist Seymour Hersh, who famously revealed the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, publishes a startling take on why the Barack Obama White House decided not to take military action against the Syrian government last year after evidence of chemical warfare emerged. It's not, as has been reported, that Obama decided he needed Congressional approval, nor that he felt like an attack would send the entire Middle East into conflict.

Hersh, citing a host of unnamed sources in the London Review of Books, says Obama saw serious evidence that the sarin chemical attack in Syria was not the work of the Assad regime, but rather the work of rebel forces. Hersh lays out the evidence, as well as new details on how close the US came to launching a strike.

Singing a lullaby may help you as much as your baby

Being a parent of an infant usually means lack of sleep, constant care, and worry. When a baby won't go to sleep, parents often turn to a lullaby. And, it turns out, that lullaby isn't just effective on the baby, it calms the parent, too, as PRI's The World reports.

This is the latest installment in our special series on motherhood and childbirth, The Ninth Month. As part of our project, we're inviting you to share your favorite lullabies with us or discover new ones from across the globe. You can sing your lullaby right into your computer or mobile device at pri.org/lullabies, or pick a region of the world and explore its lullabies.

India may soon elect a leader many believe was complicit in religious violence

India hasn't had a good run under the ruling Congress party. Growth has slowed, education is still poor and corruption is reportedly rampant. So it's no surprise that the incumbent seems likely to be voted out of office. But what's surprising, perhaps, is who seems likely to take power.

According to The Economist, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narendra Modi is the likely successor. But Modi, it says, is linked to religious violence that has killed thousands over the past 25 years. Though the magazine comes up well short of blaming the violence on him, it does link him to events that led to violence. And, the magazine adds, Modi has done nothing to explain his past.

That very first instance of March Madness

When Kentucky and Connecticut tip off in the men's basketball NCAA final tonight, they'll be concluding another installment of March Madness. But the first installment of March Madness, back when things weren't so mad, concluded in a much different environment. The first NCAA men's basketball tournament was held in 1939, when the world was on the verge of war. Just eight teams were invited.

In that year, Ohio State played Oregon, with Oregon coming out on top. And a few years later, many of the men who played that night in March were in the US military, embroiled in a far more serious battle. PRI's The World has the story.

What we're seeing on social

Weather around the world

Tropical Cyclone Ita plowed through the Solomon Islands over the weekend, leaving 19 people dead from flooding and another 49,000 people homeless, according to The Guardian. The storm is expected to intensfy and move into northern Australia this week.

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